Why crash the gates when you can walk through them?

As if Red State wasn't getting prominent enough, through big-name guests like Fred Thompson, Tom Delay, Steve Forbes, and John Boehner, our own beloved Erick Erickson is running for office.

I find this immensely exciting, and would love to see him win. Sure, City Council of Macon, Georgia doesn't sound like a big deal, but think about it: for all the success that sites like Daily Kos or MyDD are supposed to have had, has anyone heard of Vis Numar or Markos Moulitsas running for anything, even dogcatcher?

Go, Erick, Go!

EDIT: Other notable Red State runs for office include Franz, Prince of Dogness running for President(!!) and of course, as everyone should know by now from the Recommended Blogs list, polyglot Eric Dondero challenging Ron Paul for Congress! Good stuff!

Besides the many candidates who liveblogged on Daily Kos for the 2006 elections, there was also one who ran in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary for Senate against Herb Kohl without much support. More importantly though, was a man named Brian Keeler who had been a regular contributor who ran for State Senate in New York and lost, but had the best showing for a Democrat in the district for years. Jack Carter, the Senate candidate in Nevada, had his daughter put up daily diaries. Also, Pete Ashdown, the Democratic candidate from Utah put up close to daily diaries as well.

There's a big difference between a politician coming to use a site, and a site founder becoming a politician. Most of your examples are of the former, as far as I can tell, just like the examples I give at the start of my piece.

But have any of the Great Lefty Online Activists made the jump from being online commentators, to being politicans?

"It's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die, and then dies...
...But if the man does know he's going to die and dies anyway. Dies, dies willing, knowing he can stop it, then...
Well, isn't that the type of man you want to keep alive?"
Karen Eiffel, Stranger Than Fiction